A MENTAL health lawyer based in Oswestry is urging people to put in an early order for tickets to see a Christmas musical that he has provided the score for and is to support UNICEF in Ukraine.

Andy Howarth, a member of the mental health team in the Oswestry offices of GHP Legal in The Cross, has lived in Shropshire for more than 20 years and regularly indulges his passion for art and music by exhibiting his drawings and sculptures and playing his bass guitar in and around Shrewsbury.

Putting on a Christmas performance of ‘A Carpenter’s Tale’ and dedicating all the proceeds to the UNICEF Ukraine Emergency Appeal was appropriate, he says, because at the end of the story Mary and Joseph are refugees.

He said that the music he has provided for the play has given it a modern theme that he thinks fits the current world situation.

He said: "Rehearsals are going really well.

“This is a musical play featuring woodwork, angels, and 15 minutes of fame.

"I play the part of the wicked King Herod and am thoroughly enjoying channelling my inner monster in a way that my fellow performers are, honestly, finding a little alarming.

“It just seemed completely appropriate that all proceeds from the play should go to the Ukraine emergency appeal.

"At the end of the play Joseph sings ‘I thought the news happened somewhere over there, to different people in a distant land, but suddenly it’s kicking down my stable door and all I have is in my own two hands'."

‘A Carpenter’s Tale’ will be performed at Shrewsbury College Arts Theatre at its London Road Campus at 7pm on Wednesday, December 21 and Thursday, December 22.

Tickets are £10 and can be purchased from www.ticketsource.co.uk/acarpenterstale, on the door, or in cash from Pengwern Books.